Review Summary: "The weight that we once held is gone"
The world is in chaos. Japan had just faced a tsunami and 9-point magnitude earthquake combo and The Gulf of Mexico was the victim of the BP oil spill just a few years prior; causing the deaths of thousands, mankind and wildlife alike. Teenagers still are riddiculed for their sexual orientation to the point that they are being pushed over the edge, ending their own lives to stop the suffering. Troops from United States have yet to come home from the Middle East after this war that has lasted over eleven years; the longest war in American history. Unemployment rates are at a disgustingly high number and the economic division between rich and poor is not only growing, it is also becoming more visible with today's media. Even today, after the riots in Ukraine, Russia is now militarilly invading it's former Soviet Union state. And to top it all off, no one is successfully making any progress to stop any of it.
So it's not hard to imagine that out of all the bands in the world Rise Against would have something to say about it. The Chicago punk-rockers have surely made a name for themselves for being more than up front about their political themes; these are the guys who wrote Appeal To Reason after all. And with their sixth full-length album Endgame these messages of collapse and change are even more prominent, many of these topics being presented earlier. All of these subjects come together in what can only be described as the closest thing Rise Against have ever come to a concept album. Endgame seems primarily focused on the most upsurd of ideas, but also the most worrying: The end of modern society as we know it today.
From the energetic intro to the last line that comes from Tim McIlrath's lips it is clearly evident that Rise Against plan on keeping their more mainstream oriented sound that was the majority of their last effort Appeal To Reason. Most of the album's twelve tracks feature clean and slick production that is an obvious nod towards a more mainstream aduience while others surprisingly feature the opposite. Songs such as Midnight Hands, Broken Mirrors, and Gentleman's Coup sound gritty and rubbed with dirt, as if the band was recording while caught within a sandstorm. They certainly offer a great change of pace but the most noticeable difference between Endgame and it's predecessor is the shift back to the breakneck speeds of their earlier works from the consistent mid-tempo that was Appeal To Reason.
Opening up with Architects the album couldn't have displayed a better example of this newfound energy. It's classic Rise Against, energetic, politically charged, and hopeful at the same time. Even looking back on it, the statements made on Architects cryptically describe the last chance that we have before falling into this state of total collapse the band spend the rest of the album detailing. The single Satellite is a perfect example of this return to form as well as it takes the shimmering production mentioned earlier and meshes it with fast paced guitars and the brilliant lyriscim that rivals what Rise Against have showed off on their most acclaimed efforts. Speaking of the lyrics, Endgame might possibly be their greatest written accomplishment: making the grandest statements, speaking on the most important subjects, and telling them in the most memorable way.
Despite being Rise Against's most consistent effort to date the album still has it's highlights with Disparity By Design, Wait For Me, Survivors Guilt, and This Is Letting Go. Wait For Me comes the closest to holding the title of the Rise Against traditional album acoustic track on Endgame; beginning with a quiet acoustic guitar before gradually evolving into a fully fledged power ballad that breaks the monotony of the consistent lyrical themes. The low points are also easily noticeable, Make It Stop falls flat as it tries to be as grand as it's topic pertaining to teen suicide, Gentleman's Coup feels forgettable, and lead single Help In On The Way is just too repetitive for its own good.
Endgame certainly has it's glaring flaws: it sometimes lacks the musical drive to make these songs as powerful as they need to be, and the last three tracks blend into one another until many repeated listens. But if one thing is clear it's that Rise Against haven't lost all of their steam yet, despite what Appeal To Reason would make you think. They are regaining their footing after forgetting where they once stood. Endgame ends on it's title track which remains an oddity amongst the rest of the album. After trying their best to avoid this inevitable collapse of society, fighting with tooth and nail to turn the world around, but once it happens there's a sense of peace, bliss.
"The weight that we once held is gone"
Somehow I feel as if they're not just talking about the end of modern society here, it might be more personal than what appears on the surface.
